The Election

The election is now over and here we are, with what everyone was predicting; a hung parliament. This result has been talked about during the whole campaign and was predicted at the beginning of the campaign, the parties have spent a lot of money and we have ended up with a result that was expected. I suppose the question has to be asked, was it worth spending all that money? I suppose with the benefit of hindsight it is easy to say that. I have 3 questions to ask, and I want to try and explore them; firstly, how on earth have Labour managed to get so many seats? Secondly; with the country in such a disastrous state, and Gordon Brown being touted as possibly the worse Prime Minister this country has had in years, why haven't the Tories managed to get a working majority? Thirdly; is there now a case for electoral reform?

If you have read my previous posts you will realise that I try to stick to the facts and never deliberately print a lie, I genuinely mean that. I am a Christian and I always try to tell the truth and hope that that comes across. With that in mind I want to try and answer the first of my questions. To me, Labour have been a disaster, practically from day one. I say this because, even though I did not vote for Labour in 1997, I was quite hopeful that after the years of sleaze and what seemed to be a corrupt and tired government we were going to get something new and refreshing. I was hoping, New Labour would take our country forward into a new millennia and we would see real change and we would have a government that was going to listen to the people and govern with this in mind. I quickly became disillusioned and there were a number of reasons for this. I will not go into great detail but I will mention them and you can make up your own mind. Pensions: Gordon Brown destroyed our pension industry overnight by taking the tax relief away from from company pensions, thus wiping out any financial incentive for companies to invest in them. This has been one of the worse things any Chancellor has ever done. Gold: Selling 395 Tonnes of our gold at $275 an ounce, not only did he sell it when the price was rock bottom he announced the day he was going to sell it. Education: Since coming to power Labour have increased spending on education by 52%, that sounds fantastic until you read the fact that more young people are leaving school unable to read. Many of our schools are battlegrounds, with teachers hands tied, unable to do anything. I will cover education in a future post. NHS: We now spend £101 billion on the NHS every year, yet we see bureaucracy and targets becoming the priority. TARGETS: this I believe has been one of Labours greatest failings. Targets sound like a good idea but unfortunately the simple truth is that managers become fixated with them to the point that they become the focal point, this has been borne out by a number of reports. The enquiry into the the Baby Peter case by Lord Lamay stated that managers had become focused on TARGETS. The enquiry into the 1200 deaths at South Staffordshire Hospital said that manager had become focused on TARGETS. Every government run organisation has to achieve targets set down by the government; from policing to the fire service, from rubbish collection to education. I could go on and on but I will say this, it isn't necessarily the fault of the mangers, because their funding is based upon achieving TARGETS, and so we have to lay the problem at the feet of the government. The economy: when Labour came to power our deficit was £6 billion, now it is £163 billion. Gordon Brown insists that this isn't his fault, because he says we are in a global recession. To a certain point this is true, but we have to look at the simple truth that Gordon Brown has been in the enviable position of having an economy that has practically had greater growth than at any other time in our history. Instead of paying off the UK's debt he decided to spend it on creating a huge public sector and increasing the welfare state, this in turn has had the affect of increasing those on state benefits and thus increasing unemployment. The public sector: we now have 8 million public sector workers, only 2 million of those are front line workers. We have seen the private sector decrease and the public sector increase, thus we have a situation of the wealth creating part of our economy decrease and more and more workers now reliant on the government for their jobs. I believe this will come back to bite us, we only have to look at what is happening in Greece. Spin: Looking back at Tony Blair's time in power I believe that his legacy is; spin, Iraq and less democracy. Tony Blair came to power on the back of Tory sleaze and left on the back of creating a country that was more cynical about politics than any other time in history. I believe Tony Blair came to power with the full intention of changing everything within our democracy e.g. Prime Ministers Question Time, the position of Lord Chancellor, the House of Lords, immigration, to name but a few and to do this with as little consultation as possible. Iraq: This country was led into a war under false pretensions, it is as simple as that, Tony Blair and his government decided to follow America regardless of the consequences. Over a million people marched through London protesting against this illegal war and the government ignored them, I believe this shows New Labour's contempt for democracy. The Eu Constitution: Again this issue has shown New Labour's total disregard for democracy, I have covered this before but let me say this one thing. Regardless of whether you agree with the EU or not, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown in 2005 as part of a manifesto commitment promised the British people a referendum on the EU Constitution. The EU changed the name to the Lisbon Treaty and agreed that it was practically the same and Gordon Brown refused us a referendum, I am afraid this sums up this whole party. Immigration: this issue above all other issues has shown New Labour for what they really are, this is a policy which New Labour decided to follow and in doing so have created huge resentment and I believe real trouble within this country. I have covered this in previous posts so that is all I am going to say. Peter Mandelson: this man to me is the embodiment of New Labour; no scruples and no morals. This man was forced to leave government twice in disgrace, was given a job as an EU Commissioner and after retiring from that job, he was given a job within Gordon Brown's cabinet. I don't think I need to say anything else !

Why haven't the Conservatives managed to get an outright majority? This isn't a simple question to answer, but I believe this opens debate on our whole party system. David Cameron and Nick clegg have shown that they are more about style over substance and that with David Cameron we have another Tony Blair. I believe the electorate can see through this and in seeing through it most people will agree that we do not want a rerun of the Blair years. I have listened to many people talk about David Cameron and his qualities but I really cannot see that he has the right qualities to govern. He has shown that he is quite capable of standing at the ballot box and haranguing the Prime Minister, but as far as leading this country, that is a different matter. David Cameron has shown that he is not able to deliver by not being able to give us clear direction on what he would do if he made government. He also promised us, the British people a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, and has reneged on that promise. He is a man who has shown that he is too willing to kowtow to the politically correct liberal left over any sensitive issue and has not stated the truth on immigration. He has been guilty of not sorting out the expenses scandal within his own party and unfortunately for us, he potentially could form the next government.

Finally, our voting system. Many people will argue that the system we have at the moment is the system we have always had and it has always worked. Some people might say that if we brought in proportional representation this could bring instability, and some may say "better the devil you know than the devil you don't". I believe there has to be a change. We have a situation in which the Democatic Unionists in N.Ireland got 168,216 votes and achieved 8 seats, the Greens 285,616 and got 1 seat and UKIP 917,832 and got no seats. I think what highlights the inequality within the system more than anything is the Lib Dems, they got 6% less votes than Labour but Labour got 258 seats and the Liberals got 57. I think this has to change. It is as simple as that, I could go into the rights and wrongs of our system but I believe this simple truth shows the fundamental problem with our 'first past the post' system of democracy.

I have watched for the past 13 years as our government has ruled with almost total disregard to the electorate, they have squandered Billions of pounds of our money on pointless projects. They have brought thousands of new laws in and they have still got a huge amount of seats. As someone who has become more and more frustrated by New Labour, it does make me wander what they have to do to make people change how they vote. I remember someone saying this to me about some people in our country; 'some people have always voted for Labour and even if the standing MP murdered their whole family they would still vote Labour'. This to me sums up the situation within our country today and I believe without a change in the system we will never see real change.